Law enforcement officers walk across the Delta State University campus to search for a shooter in connection with the shooting of history professor Ethan Schmidt in his office. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

(Newser)
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A Delta State University professor has killed himself after two alleged murders and a huge manhunt, police in Mississippi say. Officials say Shannon Lamb, who's believed to have killed his girlfriend before shooting a colleague dead in his office at the university yesterday, took off on foot after police started following his vehicle last night and shot himself in the head as officers waited for backup, the AP reports. He was pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital in Greenville, Miss. Police say they spoke to the 45-year-old geography professor while the manhunt was in progress and he told them that he was "not going to jail," the BBC reports.

Police haven't disclosed a motive in the murders of 41-year-old Amy Prentiss and 39-year-old history professor Ethan Schmidt. Delta State University President William LaForge tells the Clarion-Ledger that Lamb, who was teaching two online courses, was in the same division as Schmidt and that they definitely knew each other. LaForge says he didn't know Lamb that well, but he "thought the world" of Schmidt, who was a "star on our faculty." A police spokesman tells the Daily Beast that Lamb apparently killed Prentiss at the home they shared in Gautier, Miss., early yesterday and told police about the murder while he was on the six-hour drive to the Delta State campus.